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Game of the Week - Manchester United vs. Liverpool
21 years ago, Manchester United travelled to the City Ground to face Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup. Having spent much of the season languishing close to the bottom of the league, it was believed that Alex Ferguson was on the verge of losing his job and that an early exit from the FA Cup may well have represented the nail in the coffin. Of course, we know how that ended, and Martin Edwards would later insist that the sense of danger in the dugout was nowhere near as had been reported. Roy Hodgson, sacked on Saturday, will not get his Nottingham Forest moment but even with Kenny Dalglish in the dugout, Liverpool go into the tie as clear underdogs with an unlikely result bordering on a necessity.
The problem at Anfield has been that whenever a good result has threatened to be the springboard for a sustained run, what has followed in the Reds' next outing has invariably equated to a sharp application of the handbrake. Coming from behind to win a game is a positive sign, and so the result against Bolton Wanderers a week ago once again sparked the hope (but no longer expectation) that it could be followed up with a break from an away sequence which had gone past poor and was now approaching 'appalling' status. Again, it was not to be as Liverpool reverted to type on the road, allowing their opponents, Blackburn Rovers, to steal the play from them and take a three goal lead before launching any sort of fight back. It is this lack of steel which has struck this writer when seeing the Reds under Hodgson in action. Having dominated long spells of the game at Newcastle United previously, the same curses of mental fragility and the concession of soft goals cost them dearly. With no progress having been made on this front during the season, it is easy to understand the clamour for change amongst Liverpool's normally patient support, clamour that the Anfield hierarchy acceded to this weekend.
However, the major ray of hope is that their opponents on Sunday have rarely played well this season while contriving to retain their unbeaten status in the league. Nani has been something of a revelation, his graduation from bits-and-pieces merchant to dynamic driving force probably the highlight of his side's campaign. However, the defence has looked shakier than usual while one or two of United's old guard appear to be finally approaching time in their careers. Gary Neville's sense of vulnerability was evident in the recent game at West Bromwich Albion, and if Fernando Torres brings his A-game to Old Trafford, he may fancy a run at a player for whom the rather large lady appears to be preparing her falsetto. On paper, this would appear a bankable victory for United, who dominated Liverpool more clearly than the 3-2 score line at the beginning of this season would suggest. This being the FA Cup, strange and quirky results are prone to appearing from a place in which logic is forbidden, but one gets the feeling that anything other than a home win would be owed to that often-stated Cup magic. With Dalglish, a bona fide Liverpool legend on the visitors’ bench, perhaps Liverpool’s luck is about to change.
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